Author's Note: Time for Ash, Brock, and Misty to join in on the training arc! Was originally going to go against my normal instincts and wait a few days to post but I don't want to slow my momentum and Saturday's are pretty good days for traffic!

Chapter 19: Hanging Tough, Staying Hungry

"Whoa!" Ash exclaimed as he looked around the entrance to the Ranch. I'd gotten a text from Brock when they caught sight of the gate and gone up to meet them.

"It's not as full as Professor Oak's corral though!"

I chuckled, "Of course not, Ash. These are just mine here. Oak has pokemon from dozens of trainers and all of his research projects. It's just my team and my research and trade reserve here."

"This is all just for you? Is your family loaded or something?"

Had…we not been over this already? Huh, perhaps not.

"My father was the lead on the team that invented the Fossil Resurrection Device. The one that created Brock's kabuto and Misty's omanyte from leftover DNA found in fossils." Honestly it was just fancy cloning in my opinion. Which was why the anti-cloning laws put in place after this invention specifically were about "living pokemon".

Because they knew it wouldn't be long before full cloning of extant pokemon would be possible. Which considering Mewtwo existing…yeah.

"Oh wow!" Ash was so eloquent.

"Anyways let's get training! I want a rematch!" I chuckled, we had two and a half weeks until when I estimated the New Island 'Tournament' would happen. We'd have to make it count.

"Alright, Brock you ref, we'll do a thre-no, you know what, I have a Healing Machine on hand and a Storage Transporter. Let's do a full six on six battle and we'll create a plan afterwards!"

Ash was jumping up and down in joy as we got out to the main practice zone I'd created. It used the intersection of the grass area, the rocky badlands area, and a roped off corner of the pond to create a varied field.

"Can we start with a full rematch between Butterfree and your sandshrew?" Ash's question caught me off guard, I'd expected him to still have let go of Butterfree, that was apparently not the case.

I nodded and pulled out Brinker's Premier Ball, "That works for me! Take the field!" I called as Ash quickly followed suit.

Except Ash was in for a surprise, I'd FINALLY gotten a hold of an Ice Stone.

So a freshly evolved Alolan sandslash stood at the ready.

"It evolved!" Truly a perceptive trainer.

"Brinker sure did!" I stated, "And it was quite the power-up! I hope Butterfree can keep up! Misty Spin!" I called out our standard opener. Brinker would use a Rapid Spin to disperse his Mist faster and move into an immediate Rollout for maneuverability.

"Alright, Butterfree!" Ash called out, "We know he can get rid of your powers! Use Bug Buzz instead!"

My eyebrows raised at that, Ash definitely had taken some of our earlier lessons and battles to heart. And that meant his butterfree had gotten quite a bit stronger too, Bug Buzz meant he was somewhere in the thirties as far as move learning progress went.

The green waves of noise-energy blasted off of Butterfree and forced Brinker to roll backwards to avoid early damage.

"Shard!" I called out and with a twist of gyroscopic direction a blue glow showed along one axis of Brinker's spin and with a thwump a small knife of ice shot out at Butterfree before he could act again.

"Free!" It cried out at the super-effective hit.

"It's so fast!" Ash commented before recovering, "Show them what we learned from Sabrina!"

Coded commands? Good job, Ash! I thought to myself as the butterfree glowed with bluish-purple light. Some kind of charged Psybeam variant perhaps?

Then the glowing aura sprung up around Brinker to match and I gaped. Ash had managed to somehow get Butterfree to learn Psychic? And apparently from or because of Sabrina?

"Mirror Coat!" I called out and while Brinker got slammed around by the psychic energies he also began to glow with a bright sheen.

"Butterfree, watch out!" Was all Ash could called out before the Mirror Coat reflected all that damage back on Butterfree, knocking him out.

Brinker did not escape unscathed, he came out of his Rollout and seemed uneasy on his feet.

We both returned our pokemon.

"Pika, pi?" Pikachu called up at Ash from next to his feet.

"No, not yet, let's see what else Isaac has before you go out, okay Pikachu?" Another very smart move, especially considering my specialty.

I saw Brock nod in approval from over at the side. He hadn't had to make any calls yet as Ash and I were both fairly considerate battlers.

I decided I wasn't going to use any of my major surprises for this fight, except perhaps Hannibal, so my next pokemon was one that interested Brock and Misty both.

"En garde, Axel!" Out came my dark and mottled brown kabutops, scythes threatening.

"Who's that pokemon?" Ash said in surprise and pulled out his pokedex, not really kosher for the fight but I'd allow it. He was a kid and this wasn't a ranked match.

"Kabutops, the shellfish pokemon, its sleek shape is perfect for swimming. It slashes prey with its claws and drains the body fluids." Dexter said aloud in his mechanical voice.

"Fish? Alright! Go, Bulbasaur!"

Amusing. I knew this bulbasaur was pretty strong, but I also was pretty sure it hadn't picked up Solar Beam yet, that would be a while.

"Set up with Swords Dance!" I wasn't as in sync with Axel and Grauben as I was with Hannibal, seeing as I had trained with him far more.

Axel whirled around setting himself up and Ash gave his first command, "Razor Leaf! Stay away from those claws!"

Good call. It wouldn't help though.

"Aqua Jet," I loved using fast priority moves right after a boost on my sweepers. It was both satisfying and helped a trainer set and control the tempo of the battle.

Axel shot forward with streams of water flying backwards out from his feet as he crossed his claws in preparation for the strike. The Razor Leaf still struck, but not as impactful as many of them ricocheted off of his armor at odd angles. And those that did hit on point chipped off and activated Weak Armor.

Now, the Aqua Jet didn't hit very hard, with Bulbasaur resisting, but what it did do was send the plant monster stumbling back and closed the distance in a blink.

This was a pretty bad match-up for Axel actually, we were trying to work up to Leech Life but for now we only had Fury Cutter learned from practicing with Artagnan, and that was resisted by Bulbasaur's secondary poison typing.

But we had the Swords Dance boost to attack and the Weak Armor boost to speed, so we'd make do with neutral damage.

"Go to town with Fury Cutter!" I commanded, letting him know he was to keep the chain going. At this point it would just depend on if Bulbasaur could get a solid hit in before Axel ground him down.

We got two hits in before Ash regathered his instincts, "Vine Whip, up into the air!" Smart move in the short term, but long term…that was a sitting duck as the bulbasaur pushed off the ground with Vine Whip and went a solid eight meters into the air.

"Rock Tomb the top of its curve!" I called out.

"Solar Beam!"

What? Uh oh…either Ash had pushed Bulbasaur harder or I'd had my dream about Bulbasaur learning the move out of order when I'd seen much of Ash's journey. And unfortunately for me it was also quite bright out today, probably enough to almost replicate a Sunny Day.

"Nevermind, put the rocks between you!" I called out just as Bulbasaur finished charging and fired off the beam.

The rocks from the Rock Tomb moved into place, Axel's blades prying them out of the ground, just in time to block the brunt of the direct elemental damage of the Solar Beam, but not enough to stop the damage from the explosion and shrapnel.

The smoke cleared as Bulbasaur landed and I saw that both pokemon were breathing hard, but not out of it yet.

I returned Axel anyway, "Let's not push them to their limits in a friendly match, okay Ash?"

"I guess that's fine, as long as we're training more later!" He returned Bulbasaur as well, "Great job, you're really getting good with Solar Beam!"

I smiled at that exchange and decided to once more give him the advantage by sending out first.

"Let's go, Lyle!" I called and sent out the Level Ball with my sandile. I was hoping whatever Ash sent out gave him the push to evolve into krokorok, he was so close.

"Dile!"

"Huh?" Ash didn't say the full motto as he pulled his pokedex back out.

"Sandile, the desert croc pokemon, they live buried in the sands of the desert. The sun-warmed sands prevent their body temperature from dropping."

"Ground...and…Dark? I've never fought that type before…okay, go Pidgeotto!"

"OTO!" With a caw his second captured pokemon ever was revealed.

"Power up time!" I called and Lyle viciously scratched his claws on the ground in front of him building up energy in them.

"Don't let him keep going, Isaac likes those moves! Whirlwind to knock him around!"

Now, Whirlwind and Roar didn't always phase a pokemon completely back to the ball the way they did in the games that I have hazily seen my former self play. (I definitely remember Whirlwind and Stealth Rocks being apparently a personal favorite of my previous incarnation). They functioned more as a less powerful but more reliable Dragon Tail. They always sent the opposing pokemon flying or reeling back, and they fully returned them more often than Dragon Tail.

"Sa!" Lyle, for all he hadn't been a member for long, knew what moves we needed to avoid. He jumped straight into a Dig to avoid it.

"Pop up into Swagger!" I called out and Lyle popped out behind Pidgeotto and got its attention by calling out and dancing and waggling his tail around cockily, a light haze of normal-type energy around him.

Swagger was a weird move and I had given up understanding some of these ages ago. It just…worked, I guess?

Regardless, Pidgeotto was now enraged and confused.

Ash surprised me by sighing and returning Pidgeotto, "Sorry buddy, I know you wanted to fight, but I think you were going to start hurting yourself there."

It was a good move, but I was sad Lyle hadn't gotten the fight he needed to evolve. I returned him as well.

"Hey, Ash? How's Charmander been doing?"

Ash immediately brightened up, "He's great! He's Charmeleon now, and it was hard to get him to listen to me for a bit there initially but I really think lately he's started to trust me more again!"

There it was, the biggest change I'd made with both my mentoring of Ash and my early acquisition of Grampa Canyon. Charmeleon hadn't evolved into an even more disobedient Charizard by fighting an aerodactyl, that may or may not have been an escaped Hannibal.

I fingered that Dusk Ball on my belt…what if…what if we could push him that extra bit? Right here? Right now? I'd been working on getting Hannibal to keep himself on the restrained side of the line of acceptable violence. Yeah, this could be…fun.

Was I basically custom building my own rival for the future? Sure. But…I licked my lips, I think the reason why I had stayed in the classroom for the first few years of having a team was anxiety as much as it had been an academic nature. Ever since I got that first taste of truly thrilling combat with Surge, I'd begun to enjoy the taste of a challenge.